The Best and Worst US Internet Laws

An anonymous reader writes "When a US legislator describes the Internet as a 'series of tubes' you just know that you're going to end up with some wacky laws on the books. Law professor Eric Goldman takes a look at the best and worst Internet laws in the U.S. Goldman offers an analysis of the biggies such as the DMCA, but also shines light on lesser-known laws like the Dot Kids Implementation and Efficiency Act of 2002. And he actually finds four Internet laws that aren't all bad."

Comments

US lawmakers dont understand global Internet

[scsirob]

I did read TFA, and it's just amazing how US lawmakers think they can govern the way Internet is being used and how it evolves, all from behind their desks. 10 out of 10 laws, good and bad, fail to take into account that these laws have no juristriction in other countries.

How does a US legislator come up with a law that tries to regulate information that may be property of an Australian entity, that sits on a German server and links to a French database hosted by a Lithouanian ISP? These laws are totally useless. Defective-by-design. And contrary to what that guy in the White House may think, America does not rule the world.

Re:US lawmakers dont understand global Internet

[Lithdren]

Its not about actually getting anything done.

Its all about being sure you can say "Look, look what I did!" when re-election comes. Even if what you did, is completly idiotic, if it 'protects consumers/children/women/whatever' you get more votes, because people dont bother to research..anything, when it comes to things like this.

Most, if not all, of the people in office realize this, realize these laws are utterly pointless, unenforceable, and overall useless. Thats why they're writing them. Easier then actually making something that WORKS.

Re:Best and worst?

[morgan_greywolf]

Agreed. The NET Act is horrible public policy. Not only that, the guy himself says that "criminal sanctions do not deter warez traders", linking to this paper on warez trading and the law, which "...discusses the motivations for warez trading, how criminalizing the behavior may counterproductively encourage it, and why legislators and prosecutors continue to target warez trading despite the counterproductive effects," in order to state his case, but then turns around and says that "[r]emoving warez traders from the Net, one by one, is a crude but ultimately effective method for curtailing warez trading" becuase "a couple of hundred warez traders have been busted by the law." (Whoop-de-doo!) So, uh, which is it? The law doesn't deter warez traders, or is the law effecting in curtailing them? You can't have it both ways.

Laws which assume that small children

[Burz]

...have the right to play in the middle of the 'Information Superhighway' are almost always rotten.

Handing over the keys to the car is something you do when your kid turns 15. There ought to be a similar ethic WRT Internet access.

How about law by sponsor, support, opposition?

[mnemotronic]

What would help me is a chart of the laws, who sponsored them, who voted for them and who voted against them. Granted, the "voted for" and "voted against" columns are rendered useless by porcine pork politics and the absurd nature of the American legislative process. All legislation receives the benefit of "earmarking". A truely bad bill may become law, not for it's primary purpose, but because of the attendant special interest amendments and good-ol-boy reach-arounds. How strange that HRBF George feels that the line item veto is a vital tool to combat ineffective laws, yet no-one believes that the Congress should be endowed with complementary powers, as in a line item vote. Legislators have the time to meet with the money (campaign contributors, special interests), construct loopholes, graft them onto other laws, and schmooze their compatriots, but do they actually have the time, as a body, to research and vote on each and every issue? Not likely.

Still, knowing who sponsored the bills would be useful (yea, I could look it up myself, but I'm a complainer, not a doer).